Lawn and Garden Tips for July

Cobb County Extension staff member Louise Weyer assembles a list each month of tips for keeping your lawn and landscape in good order. As summer heads into high gear, following Louise's checklist of tasks can  improve the odds of your yard's shining through to fall.

Louise's Tips for Trees and Shrubs for July includes this information:

• Spring-planted trees and shrubs need an inch of water each week. Irrigate in dry weather.
• Mature trees need deep watering; they can lose leaves if they have inadequate water.
• Prune Knock-out roses.
• Remove dry flowers from butterfly bush to encourage more blooms, and remove flowers from shrub roses as they fade.
• Remove suckers from the base of cherry, apple, crape myrtle, dogwood, and crabapple trees.

For annuals and perennials:

Lawn and Garden Tips for March

Cobb County Extension staff member Louise Weyer assembles a list each month of tips for keeping your lawn and landscape in good order. As winter nears its end, following Louise's checklist of tasks can help your yard shift successfully to warmer-weather mode and improve the odds of its shining through the spring.

Louise's Tips for Trees and Shrubs for March includes this information:

• Prune roses, camellias, crape myrtles, late-flowering clematis, and butterfly bush.
• Delay pruning of early-blooming shrubs, such as forsythia, quince, and weigela, until after they bloom.
• Prune out dead stems on all shrubs and trees.
• Clean blades of pruning tools with alcohol or a bleach solution (1 part bleach to 9 parts water) to reduce spread of disease.
• Spray multipurpose fungicide on roses when leaves appear, to control black-spot.
• If major renovation of broadleaf evergreens is needed, prune those now.

It's a New Year in the Yard, too: Louise's January Tips

Cobb County Cooperative Extension staff member Louise Weyer has published this month's set of tips for keeping your lawn and landscape in good order. As the calendar year begins and as winter finally brings us some more sustained cold weather, having a list at hand of tasks that need to be completed can help get the yard off to a good start, so that it shines through the rest of the year.

The tips for Trees and Shrubs includes this information:

Trees and Shrubs

Ø  Protect tender plants (camellias, gardenias) if night temperatures go below 20 degrees.  Use burlap, weed barrier fabric or cotton sheets.

Ø  Protect ornamental plants in containers during subfreezing weather.  See “Winter Protection of Ornamental Plants.”

Ø  Read “Winter Care of Roses.”

Ø  Plant winter-blooming shrubs like winter daphne or winter honeysuckle. Prepare the planting beds by tilling in soil amendments.  Examine the roots at the nursery.  Healthy roots are firm, white or cream color.

Ø  Plant bare-root, balled and burlap or container grown roses through February. Prepare bed for bare-root roses:  dig an area 4 ft. wide by 12 in. deep for each plant, adding plenty of soil conditioner.

Ø  Plant trees and other shrubs. Be sure to remove synthetic burlap from ball and burlap plants.  It does not decompose.  Fertilize fall planted shrubs in the spring.

Ø  Transplant trees and shrubs.

Ø  Keep new plantings well watered.

Ø  Refresh mulch, 3 inches deep, around trees and shrubs.  Keep mulch away from trunks. If planting had a disease problem, remove old mulch to help prevent disease in future.

Ø  Cut down and remove trees or shrubs attacked by Asian ambrosia or pine bark beetles.

Ø  Prune out dead, damaged or diseased material.

Ø  Prune hardwood trees.  DO NOT TOP TREES.

Ø   Major pruning of broadleaf evergreens should be delayed until March.

Ø  Prune abelia, butterfly bush, chaste tree, crape myrtle, pee gee hydrangea, and St. Johnswort.

Ø  Pick bagworms from evergreen shrubs.

Ø  Inspect trees and shrubs for scale.  Spray with dormant oil now and in early Spring.

The remainder of the list for Trees and Shrubs includes disease and pest information for some specific landscape plants and links to websites for a homeowner tree survey published by the Georgia Forestry Commission, to the UGA publication "Planting and Taking Care of Trees During a Drought," and to the publication "Planting Under Trees."

Louise also lists tips for taking care of Annuals and Perennials (example: Prune most ornamental grasses to a height of 12 to 24 inches.), for Turf (example: Do not fertilize Bermuda, centipede, or Zoysia.), for Fruit (example: Prune apple, fig, pear, plum, and persimmon trees and grape vines late January and into February.), and Vegetables (example: See "Vegetable Gardening in Georgia" for varieties, planting dates, etc.).

There is more, of course, ranging from ways to manage water use in the landscape, to problem plants and pesticide disposal, to mulch and compost, and more.

For the Louise's full list, go to the Cobb County Cooperative Extension home page, select the link to Agriculture and Natural Resources, then select the link at the top of that page to the Cobb County Extension Publications and Articles. Louise's Tips for January are linked at the top left corner of the table of publications.

Louise's November Garden Tips

Extension staff member Louise Weyer publishes timely tips each month on the Cobb County Cooperative Extension website. Many gardeners will be wanting to spruce up their yards for the upcoming holidays, and checking her list can be a big help.

These are her November tips for annual and perennial plants:

Plant Lenten rose, peonies, pansies, violas, snapdragons, dianthus and spring bulbs.
Read “Winter Protection of Ornamental Plants” at www.cobbextension.com. Click on ANR, Extension Publications, scroll to article under Miscellaneous.
Read “Success with Pansies” See “Cold Protection for Ornamentals”  
Control weeds. Apply weed pre-emergent.
Dig caladium bulbs, dahlia tubers, elephant ear corms, and ornamental sweet potato tubers for winter storage.
Clean up rose beds, perennial beds.
Cut faded chrysanthemums, asters, snapdragons and dianthus to 3 inches above ground. Remove faded blooms, dry stems and foliage of perennials that die back after first frost.
Mulch to retain moisture, control soil temperature and diseases.
Top dress perennial beds with 1 to 2 inches of compost. Keep away from crowns of plants.
Fertilize previously planted spring flowering bulbs and pansies.
Gently remove fallen leaves from beds. Shred and use as mulch or compost.

To read Louise's recommendations for caring for fruits, trees and shrubs, lawns, and vegetables (hint: November is a good month for planting asparagus and onions), along with information on the Water Act, the burn ban, care of the environment, and other topics for which action can be taken this month, see her full list posted on the Cobb County Cooperative Extension website.

From the homepage, select "More information on horticulture/agriculture & natural resources," then click on the link for Cobb County Cooperative Extension Publications and Articles near the top of the page. Louise's tips are called "November Tips of the Month."

She publishes a new set every month, and the list is worth looking for. There is plenty of good information to help you keep your yard and home in good shape!